I got this shot - and several others like it - on the way home from picking my kids up from school. (lesson learned Magpye...ALWAYS take my camera with me even if I only get a shot once a week LOL).
This butterfly (Anaphaeis aurota) apparently isn't here in Israel every year....sometimes not appearing for several years. It's just lovely :-).
For more information on him: http://www.nature-of-oz.com/pieridae1.htm
-Julie
Nice shot, Julie!
Isn't it nice when you get a close look at an uncommon visitor! Your butterfly is incredibly like (and closely related to) one of our Australian butterflies, the Caper White Anaphaeis java. This butterfly lives in the dry heart of Australia, where it feeds its caterpillars exclusively on Caper bushes (Capparis species). In some years they have major population explosions and turn up in numbers outside their normal range. Back in 1993, I found this one sitting on the ground on a track in Morwell National Park near here and it stayed very still enabling me to get a real close-up picture. That was the only one I saw that year, but in 1997 we had a major invasion of them and there were Caper White's everywhere, including visitors to our garden. There are no caper bushes around here however, so they don't stay and breed and I haven't seen a single one since that year!
Uhhh huhhh .. I toldja!! .. LoL ..
Fantastic pic Juls! .. and Kennedyh, too, a'course!
You know .. on that very quick 1st glance at the thumbnail (for 'me') .. I thought,
... 'huh, a bleached Monach?' ... hee hee
Tis some beautiful flutterbye tho' ...
- Magpye
Here is another shot of the Caper White, which I took up in Queensland, within its normal range. Not so close this time, but it does show the upper wings.
Gorgeous butterfly kennedyh! It looks like that bush is creepy crawling with a whole horde of other things too. What are those bugs?...if you happen to know that is. :-)
-Julie
Yes there are some interesting bugs with the butterfly. I haven't been able to identify them up to now. In fact I only noticed them myself when I got this photo out to post to this thread. They are certainly true bugs of the order Hemiptera, but that is as far as I can go.
